The Moz Blog

Attract Customers to Your Community with Content

The author's posts are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

Everybody’s talking about content. And everybody’s writing content. SEOs, social media specialists, agencies, marketing departments, probably even your mom. And a lot of it isn’t pretty.

Hopefully, by now, you got the memo that if you want your content to grow your business, it can’t be crap.

And hopefully you’re ready to do something about it.

There is a very tiny (yet very significant) theme — a shift in perspective — that is important to embody when you’re generating content for your website, blog, and social media outlets (oh, and offline, too):

It’s not about you.

It’s just not.

Even though you may be one of your company’s biggest fans, you are not your target audience. If you want to attract customers to your brand and your community, your content needs to reflect the fact that you understand your customer. That you’ve actually thought about and considered the challenges they face which make your product or service a necessity in their lives.

And you need to do all that without making it about you.

Try using foundational and community building content

In general, there are two types of content that you need on your website; we call them foundational content and community building content.

Foundational content is the important stuff that permanently lives on your website. It’s the inherently self-promotional stuff that explains who you are and what you do. It’s your about page, your sales pages (products or services), and it tends to be (but isn’t always) pretty static. Foundational content is the stuff that’s pretty much impossible not to make about you because it is, in fact, about you. As a result, in order to attract customers to your community with your foundational content, you’ve got to pack it full of value.

Community building content is less about what you do and more about what you know. It usually lives on your blog, is dynamic, and indirectly promotes your brand (and earns links). It’s what bolsters your online reputation as an expert. It builds trust, establishes credibility, and naturally attracts people to you. Community building content is most effective when it’s not self-promotional. It doesn’t need to say your company name. Instead, it needs to be completely focused on your customer and the value that you can provide or point them towards.

Patagonia is a really great example of providing value in both types of content. Whether it’s foundational or community building, they focus on the customer, their needs, and the experience. Let's take a look at some examples.

Packing value into foundational content

In Patagonia's foundational content, they focus their message not just on how cool their product looks or even how functional it is (though they don’t hide those things), but also on the broader concerns of their target audience.

This is an email marketing promotion that my husband just recently received about the Encapsil Parka:

Notice how instead of just bragging about the fact that this is the best down parka ever made (all about them), Patagonia is also going to show you what they mean by providing value through video (all about the customer).

If you click through to the video, the content boasts “how little is used” to make the jacket, something that is important to consumers who respect (and are drawn to) the Patagonia brand. Patagonia is balancing self-promotion with something that is useful and enhances the experience.

Even though Patagonia’s intention is to sell this product, they are committed to integrating value into their foundational content so that they are serving their customer. The page is also packed with additional videos, details, social proof, customer testimonials, and the opportunity to live chat. All. Kinds. Of. Value.

What community building content looks like

About a week later, my husband also received this email from Patagonia:

This is Tommy. He climbs rocks for a living. He’s a Patagonia Ambassador (that’s code for bad-ass-rock-climber).

This email marketing promotion clicks through to a post on the Patagonia blog about Tommy. Even though it lives on the Patagonia blog, it doesn’t plug Patagonia products, it doesn’t even link to any associated Patagonia rock climbing gear. It’s all about Tommy, his (kind of scary) adventures, and his drive to be a standup guy.

This is community building content (and it probably attracts a lot of links, too). It’s indirectly self-promotional. It speaks to the kind of people that Patagonia wants to attract to their community. My guess (and presumably Patagonia’s guess, too) is that people who like guys like Tommy resonate with what Patagonia stands for as a company and they want to be a part of what they’re doing (which means buy their products and join their community).

You can do this with a content strategy

You don’t have to be a ginormous brand like Patagonia to generate the kinds of content that will attract customers to your community. You just need to have a content strategy that will get you from where you are to where you’d like to be.

The best place to start is with a content audit of your existing content. If you want to attract people to your community with your content, you’ve got to make it worth reading. That means over the first several months (and possibly beyond) you’re going to need to spend some time transforming what exists: improve what’s worth revising and ditch the rest.

Re-working your foundational content

When you’re auditing your foundational content, pay attention to whether it has any value or if it’s all about you. Certainly your content is going to be self-promotional (it is, after all, your website), but you can communicate what you do or sell and still be focused on the customer and their experience.

Your why
Have you figured out your why yet? Focus on your passion and what makes you unique in your space. Why are you different from your competition? What is it that you like to do? Get very clear about what you do well and why and then make that what you’re all about.

Your customer
Who exactly are you targeting (remember, the whole world is not your customer)? Develop a persona around them. Get to know your semi-fictional audience members and keep them in mind as you manipulate your content.

Their challenges
What challenges does your audience have? Define their pain points and then make sure your content addresses them.

Where they’re coming from
At what level in the conversion funnel might your customer be visiting this page? In order to provide the best experience possible, your content should reflect this.

Balance the ‘all about me’ in your foundational content with the value that better serves your customer. Instead of having a page with a couple paragraphs of text and some bullets like this:

Integrating value into your foundational content is really about two things:

Satisfying user intent
The purpose of your foundational content is to convert. If you don’t provide anything but a couple paragraphs that give your 30 second elevator speech, you’ve just lost the opportunity for a sale.

User experience
Making sure that you’re providing the best user experience and that it’s consistent across your website, blog, and social media outlets, as well as your offline efforts.

The more value you provide with your foundational content, the more desirable you become, the more trust you build, the more you appeal to the person who is on the other side of that search. Again, anything that is going to make it less about you and more about them.

The key is to balance all of your foundational content with some community building content and then you’ve won the internet.

The angle on community building content

First things first. Just because you have a blog, doesn’t mean you always have to write about the stuff you sell (remember the 80/20 rule?). Same goes for your social media outlets. That gets old quick and can be pretty limiting in terms of the audience you can engage. It’s ok to promote your products or services on your blog, but work to keep that to 20% of the time.

Focus on developing community building content on your blog. It's the powerhouse that can help you reach the objectives you have for your business, and also attract (the right) customers to your community. But again, same thing applies: lay off the self-promotion.

Community building content can be blog posts like this one from SimpliSafe or infographics like this one that SEOgadget lovingly created for one of their clients:

The bottom line with your community building content is that the focus needs to be on your customer. It's not meant to directly promote your company. You want to generate content that indirectly communicates your strengths and illustrates your expertise and knowledge. If your customers can find alignment with what they're searching for and the content you're providing, chances are, they will be more inclined to not only be part of your community, but also purchase your products and services.

Before you write your community building content, consider things like:

The goals of your (potential) customer
You know what your goals are for your business, but what about the goals of your target audience? What are their intentions with your content?

Depth in your content
What can you help them learn or better understand? Can you change their mind about an industry misconception or challenge their beliefs on a particular subject?

Satisfying a need
How can you serve their needs? Can you provide advice, ideas, instructions, suggestions, a guide? Your goal is to focus on providing quality content that that people really want (and are searching for).

The basic gist is within your content strategy should look like this: 70% of your content should be a mix of mainstream stuff (knowledge, advice, and how-to type content); 20% goes along the same lines as the 70%, but with a little risk taking (controversial or attempting to attract a new audience); and 10% is the super cool stuff that may completely bomb but showcases your innovative side.

The thing about this approach is that it will help you to challenge the direction of your community building content so that you avoid just creating the same kind of stuff over and over (which will provide a more exciting experience for your users). It will both satisfy your existing customers and community members and attract new people who resonate with what you’re putting out there.

Even more importantly, the 70/20/10 principle will push who you are as a company which is really important when you're growing a community. Your community building content needs to make a statement about your brand, showing your community what you’re capable of and what you believe in. All stuff that will attract them to you (and keep them there).

Some final pointers

A couple (ok, three) more things to keep in mind:

There is no magic formula
It’s really important to have a content strategy that will assist you in working toward goals for your business. And it’s also really important that you create an execution plan that will help translate all of the stuff you want to accomplish into actionable, chewable pieces. But keep in mind that there is no magic number of posts that will attract customers to your business and your community. It’s the quality of your business, your content, and you.

As you work to develop strong content, keep in mind that this is an ongoing process that involves constant iteration. Don’t plan an execution calendar for any longer than a few months. Let your strategy drive, but listen to your content. Allow the freedom to be agile and change course based on what happens when your content is actually released.

Bring it back to your goals
Allow your content to take you on unexpected journeys. Be open to new ideas, consider the feedback you’re getting in blog comments and from people who provide input in real life. If a topic in your strategy suddenly becomes urgent, move it up in your execution plan. Be flexible. Just always make sure that you bring it back to your goals. When you ensure that your content is always in alignment with your business objectives and what your customers need, you’re clearing the noise. You’re staying focused on producing what’s important which helps to reduce anxiety, workload, and keeps you on track.

Good content is an investment in your business
Quality content is an asset that builds value in your business. Whether it’s a blog post, guide, whitepaper, case study, infographic, or video, your content is going to attract people to your business and your community (ongoing).

Creating content that’s valuable is not always a quick and easy task. Whether you’re committing to this for your own business or you’re an agency assisting a client with content, it’s going to take some time.

Start small. We’ve found with our clients that committing to two small (quality) posts a month is a realistic frequency (but it really depends on your goals and your strategy). If you’re developing content that’s more extensive like an in-depth guide or an infographic, reduce the frequency that month. Instead of spreading yourself thin on two, put all of your energy into one heavy hitter and give it the attention it deserves. After all, it’s an investment in your business.

Your content is meant to serve a purpose

Building and growing a community around your business can be done with an investment in a good strategy, content, outreach, and a lot of hard work. But keep in mind that your content isn’t just meant to rank, it’s intended to serve a purpose. Draw people in with your community building content, and then pack your foundational content so full of value that making the sale is the natural next step.

What interesting ways are you integrating value into your content, or have you seen other companies doing? I’d love for you to share your experiences in the comments below.

About MackenzieFogelson —
Mack is the Founder and CEO of Mack Web - an online community and brand building company (and also a Mercury 100 Company, one of the fastest growing companies in Northern Colorado). She has been a featured speaker at MozCon, SearchLove, and other top industry conferences. Mack is a firm and passionate believer in user experience and the building of community.

52 Comments

Mackenzie's on a roll!Another awesome post :) Content is King as they say and I've found it so hard for a start-up forum for example to gain any users without paid advertising and stickys on related already large forums.Awesome post with some great content production tips :)

Absolutely! Thanks a lot Mackenzie for these great content tips which can help one build a great online community ever. A good niche specific content strategy such as this can help one build a great community in any niche without advertising and much of a non-content budget.

Nice post Mackenzie, I always enjoy your pieces. Content is such a vital part to all facets of a website and its branding/marketing - you give some really good insight into how to shift content away from you and give the user more of what they want while keeping a nice balance.

Hey, I really enjoyed reading your post and think you are completely right. Having good content is an important investment for a business. Good content stands the test of time and will continue to add value over and over again. Content for the sake of content is going to just annoy customers!

Love this Mackenzie. Really interesting diagram around a content audit, hadn't though about it explicitly like that before. I did a doozy of a post on how to do a content audit over at ClickZ a few months back and would love to hear your opinion on it and whether or not it's similar to the process you do, too.

Damn good post, Mackenzie! Seems that content marketing is all the rage these days among online marketing agencies, although I don't recall reading such a thorough, detailed analysis of how it should be done properly. I love the explanation of the foundational vs community building content, as that's a key distinction most articles tend to gloss over.

My only concern/challenge/obstacle to overcome in pitching content marketing to most business owners - this stuff is WAY over their head right now. Content marketing in its current iteration is tough to grasp for most businesses, especially because they need to understand how/why/what it is, how it affects the bottom line, and how it fits within the framework of their other marketing endeavors i.e. social media, online video production, video SEO, etc. There are so many moving pieces to an effective content marketing strategy that getting them to "buy in" to the process is a tough sell, especially for the clients who may have been raised pre-Internet (the "old school" folks). It's such a long, arduous education process that I think most business owners are not ready to fully invest in it yet and/or they don't fully understand it. Hopefully, more articles like this can really help them along in their learning curve. Gonna share with our clients, have them get their education on!

Great Julian. I hope it helps you to open opportunities with your clients.

Over the last year, we've developed all kinds of resources that we use to help educate potential clients, and that has definitely helped during our sales process. But really, even once you sign a client you've got to continually help them understand what efforts are being made and how that's helping them reach their goals. You've got to root all of this stuff in data so that they can see the results. Distilled has a lot of great posts on this. I'd recommend checking out their blog.

Good stuff Mackenzie! The 80/20 rule sounds great in theory, but I can't tell you how many times I've had to defend the idea of sharing / blogging other things (outside of the services they offer) to clients. It's like pulling teeth. Once they get it, it's smooth sailing, but getting there can be tough.

Generally speaking, putting the user first results in win. Again, great post Mackenzie!

Hey Mack,I agree with your tones of focusing on the consumer and not the brand entirely. In copywriting, we stress to express the benefit and not the features of respective goods/services. Who wants to read about how great your brand is? I mean, consumers want to see cues related to authority and advocacy, but using another writing element, show, don't tell consumers. people who are good at what they do don't need to tell you.. just show you.

Completely agree Anthony. It's always a challenging shift even though it seems like common sense. Building a community (and your business) requires thinking of others and not just yourself. We need more companies who are shining examples of the show, don't just tell mentality.

Mackenzie...I second Mr. Charles above! Hit right home as a discussion group of us are looking to come up with more unique content for our sites but not promoting ourselves at the same time. Patagonia is a tremendous example of how effective the 'right stuff' makes it happen for the popularity and success of a product...how word travels doesn't it?! Remembering it is not about me and my small business but about my client always is so important. The 70-20-10 rule is a good thing to have when writing. Thanks again for inspiring to do better for my consumer!

Groovy post! The "Making Tommy" page made me think of The Who's album Tommy and the "Making Of" documentaries of watched about that over the years. It's a great album, actually. I wonder if Tommy Caldwell had it in mind?

Awesome post, I will be referring back to this! Thanks Mackenzie. The yellow circle (what the user wants) is so important, and getting the overlaps right is hard sometimes. It made me think of a post I read recently on how with social in particular, brands so often get it wrong and focus too much on themselves, not the customer. (I.e. make them look cool and you're winning!)

Good stuff posted by Mackenzie. Online content marketing has become much more competitive these days. Content marketing is an art of communicating with your customers. It is the best practice in order to get the best results.

Thanks, Mackenzie for this great post. You've got this straight-shooter-ness that takes certain ideas/concepts that are sometimes kind of underground obvious but indescribable. You make it tangible and then manage to throw in a bunch of brand new ideas. How's that for a mouthful? But seriously, your posts are very helpful. We've been in business for 15 years (web development) and I'm just in the past few months finally embarking on building our content with a blog and content marketing. You are lending structure to daunting and overwhelming territory. I'm lucky to have you as a learning resource.

My last three bosses were walking infomercials or risk averse personalities. I appreciate now the 70/20/10 guideline as a way to break out of the selfish or fearful tendencies that I have always been chained to, and to some degree, have inherited myself.I also like the 10% taking chances. I would not say that I am a great risk taker, but now I understand that I should take some risks in content creation because it may have a payoff in creating an online personality that resonates well with visitors.

That's great that you're finding more freedom. Ian Lurie from Portent is
who introduced me to the 70-20-10 and I believe he adapted it from
Jonathan Mildenhall, Vice-President of Global Advertising Strategy and
Creative Excellence at The Coca-Cola Company. All good stuff!

That's great that you're finding more freedom. Ian Lurie from Portent is
who introduced me to the 70-20-10 and I believe he adapted it from
Jonathan Mildenhall, Vice-President of Global Advertising Strategy and
Creative Excellence at The Coca-Cola Company. All good stuff!

Thanks Mackenzie, this piece really reinforces how important GOOD content is. I think a lot of places make the mistake of just pumping out content, when in reality a few good pieces can be much more powerful. It's also a great reminder to experiment and try something new. You might fail, but you might not. Looking forward to pushing our content in new directions.

My pleasure Caroline and I completely agree. It's so not about frequency. And although it is about quality, it's also about relevance. What do your customers really need and how could your content satisfy those in your existing community and also attract those who aren't yet there.

As you generate content like this, be sure to share. I always need good examples!

What makes Patagonia so successful is that they know exactly who they are as a brand and they know exactly what kind of customer that brand attracts. They always craft messages that hit those customers square on the nose and turn Patagonia into the glue that holds that community together and in turn Patagonia becomes more than just a company; they become an active member of their own audience.

So true Nick. It's really powerful when you can see it working like it does for Patagonia. We're trying to get some smaller businesses to have those successes, too, but it takes time.

Companies really need to own who they are and focus on that. It took Mack Web 10 years to figure it out, and now we really get it which has made a huge difference in our business. It also makes it a lot easier to teach our clients what that feels like and how to get there.

It's hard to let go of the mentality that you have to have every customer and focus on the right customers for your business. That comes out of a direct reflection of knowing who you are as a brand and how to attract the customers who resonate.

This really is a killer post.I know for sure I'm going to go back and take a look at content strategy for myself and clients to find a happy medium between community and foundational content.But more importantly, we all need to find that sweet spot when it comes to writing for our target audience.

So true Ian. If you take the time to figure out what it is that your business really does, then the rest becomes a lot easier. And yes, strategy is always the best place to start. Helps to get you focused and get results.

Thanks for this simple-to-follow guide for "mixing it up" with the content on your website. I think we all get stuck writing about our own products/services and forget to humanize it a bit. I will definitely share this with my clients and incorporate it in my own writing. The community part is really the FUN. Thanks for reminding us how it can be done better.

Great job articulating an important, and often missed, component of Content Marketing. Perfect timing on this post for me. I just had a conversation with a client yesterday about content on their website (not nearly as in depth as this however). They tend to subscribe to the 20/80 rule (instead of the 80/20), where it is all straight sales posts vs. hardly any community building. They are very risk adverse and when I mentioned the possibility of creating an infographic, their main concern was a competitor using it. (very old skool here)Although I will share your post with them, since it will be too much for the client to absorb, I will most likely have to summarize it for them.We will see how it goes. Thanks for the clarity.

Over the last year we've been working on the best ways to communicate these concepts to clients and it is definitely a challenge as it is a big shift in perspective (even though it seems like common sense). All you can do is keep testing what works to get them on the same page. We've found success creating infographics that help aid in the sales process. And certainly, if you can provide any case studies, people like that too.

Ultimately though, you need the clients who are willing to take the plunge. As with anything, it is a risk, but it's one that will most certainly pay off in the end.

Thank you Mackenzie! I've been thinking to start a new blog and this post came just in time for me. I was out of ideas on how to create good looking content with valuable information, I usually don't add images or videos to the posts I make and I can see they make a huge difference and I always write only about the stuff I want to sell. I will follow thoroughly your advice for me and my clients. Bookmarked!

Great post. I like the content audit template and other examples you shared. A lot of small businesses don't invest much time into content, and when they do, it's all about them. It can be hard to get people to wrap their minds around building content with value to their audience.

I like to use an analogy to explain this concept to clients: "A blog that only talks about the company is like a person who only talks about himself. People find it boring at best; pretentious at worst." Thanks for offering some clear advice on how to improve value and community engagement.